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poets, too!--statesmen would consult its opinions, and its editor (and deep down inside Nort saw himself with incomparable vividness as that very editor), its editor would sway the destinies of the nation. As he talked he began to swing his arms, he increased his pace until he was a step or two ahead of Anthy, walking so quickly at times that she could scarcely keep up with him. Apparently he forgot that she was there--only he didn't quite. Apparently he was talking impersonally to the tree tops and the south wind and the stars--only he wasn't, really. When they came to the gate of Anthy's home, Nort walked straight past it and did not discover for a moment or two that Anthy had stopped. When he came back Anthy was standing, a dim figure, in the gateway. "Well," he said, "I've been doing all the talking----" Anthy's low laugh sounded clear in the night air. "Your picture of a reconstructed country newspaper is irresistible!" "It could be done!" said Nort. "It could be done right here in Hempfield. Brains and energy will count anywhere, Miss Doane. Why, we could make the Hempfield _Star_ one of the most quoted journals in America--or in the world!" They stood silent for a moment there at the gate. Nort was not looking at Anthy, or thought he was not, but long afterward he had only to close his eyes, and the whole scene came back to him: the dim old house rising among its trees, the wide sky and the stars overhead, and the slight figure of Anthy there in the gateway. And the very odour and feel of the night---- Anthy was turning to walk up the pathway. "One week more," said Nort. "One week more," responded Anthy. Now there is nothing either mystical or poetical about any one of these three words-one--week--more--or about all of them together, and yet Nort once repeated them for me as though they had some peculiar or esoteric significance. They merely meant that there was another week before Ed Smith returned. A week is enough for youth! [Illustration] CHAPTER IX A LETTER TO LINCOLN Reaching this point in my narrative I lean back in my chair--the coals are dying down in the fireplace, Harriet long ago went to bed, and the house is silent with a silence that one can hear--I lean back and think again of that moment in Anthy's life. I have before me an open letter, a letter so often opened and so often folded again that the creases are worn thin. I keep it in the drawer of my desk w
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